Bandage
by LunaStellaCat
Summary: All it takes is ripping off the bandage. Thanks for reading. Any reviews or critiques would be appreciated.


Potions, Drink of Despair. Task #1: Write about someone experiencing an awful trauma. "I am a ghost of whoever it was I used to be."

Poppy Pomfrey paid handsomely for a mistake she made in a broom cupboard. A moment of weakness. All right, so it wasn't exactly a broom cupboard, yet she'd opened her legs and got a souvenir out of it. Men enjoyed moments of passion and pleasure, and sometimes women, wives, or whores gave them presents. Yes, she thought dully as she pulled the crisp white apron over her belly and turned it around after tying it loosely, this was how her plain speaking grandfather had phrased it.

To be fair, she wore a ring on her finger. The scratched band once belonged to an Isobel McGonagall, and it was now hers. This fact mattered to the reverend, Kristopher's grandfather, who insisted timing was everything. Poppy let Kristopher crash after coming off yet another marathon shift at St. Mungo's. After pulling back her long blonde hair, she set the hairbrush down and dropped her face in her hands.

She liked acting as the matron who stayed in the background and bustled around patching everyone else up. Poppy ceased to matter until she shared her body with a parasite. Everyone said pregnancy was this beautiful thing. Setting the pacifist matron part of herself aside, Poppy struggled with fighting with an irresistible urge not to punch these people, especially these happy-go-lucky women with their "radiant glow" and their "extraordinary experience" in the teeth. Since this happened back in early spring, nausea and vomiting accompanied her like old friends who never left.

As they slept at the reverend's home, the manse outside of Caithness, they followed the reverend's unspoken rule about leaving the bedroom door open. Poppy jumped when someone tapped on the doorframe, mirroring knocking, and she nearly knocked Professor McGonagall to the ground as she shoved past her on her dash to the bathroom. Poppy stripped off the apron as she only wore it as habit.

"Do you need a hand?" asked Professor McGonagall.

Poppy retched in answer and rested her head on the cool porcelain bowl. The reverend, an old portly man, doubled back as he draped a blue tie over his neck. He picked up the apron and folded it before he set it on the linens shelf.

Poppy smiled weakly, completely embarrassed, but the reverend simply stood there and stared at her sympathetically. He took a neatly folded handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it over.

"You are really having a time with this," he said, helping her to her feet. The reverend strode across the corridor in a few quick strides and tossed a pillow at his grandson. "Get up, Kristopher."

"I'm fine," said Poppy, lying through her teeth as she brushed them.

"Papa, he just got off shift," said Professor McGonagall sharply. She turned her head, addressing her favorite nephew in a somewhat kinder tone. Poppy finished cleaning herself up and stepped in between them. "When did you get back Kit?"

Kristopher checked his watch on the bedside table, not even looking at them, and he held up two fingers. Two hours ago.

"Oh, sorry, Kit. Good night," said the reverend apologetically. Kristopher grunted incoherently and laid his head back down as his grandfather closed the door softly. He walked down the corridor with his daughter.

"Grandpapa … never-ending shift," grunted Kit sleepily, delayed. Poppy, guessing they were excused from church on a Sunday morning, pulled on her nightgown resembling an old-fashioned shift and climbed back into bed, and she snuggled next to Kit and made no complaint when he cupped her largenbreast in his hand. "I miss sex. For old time's sake?"

Sex and mockery: they based their on again, off again relationship off these loose terms. She said yes with with a long kiss, Kristopher made himself at home and climbed on top of her. Poppy enjoyed the slow and steady rhythm, missing his touch, and cried out in pleasure as entered her, Kit clapped his hand over her mouth and moaned. Poppy rolled her blue eyes, another sound escaping her lips as he wrapped things up.

"You're a fool," she said, catching her breath and running her fingers through his dark locks.

"Your fucking fool," he said, interpreting this insult as a jape or a compliment. Poppy couldn't tell which way he took it. Kit's trimmed beard tickled Poppy's face as he kissed her. He called Poppy a cloistered nun, for she usually wore a black dress with skirts and neat sleeves under her apron. They shut up as Professor McGonagall went down the corridor with her quickened footsteps. "She's no nun."

"She's a schoolteacher," said Poppy simply. Students lived in the moment and often forgot or didn't care the professors or the Hogwarts staff led their own lives.

"Yep. She's been sharing a bed with Uncle Elphinstone for years, and they're all none the wiser. Because she's the reverend's perfect daughter whilst in Caithness." Kit snorted, fighting sleep because he wanted shut eye and wished to spend time with Poppy at the same time. Elphinstone Urquart wasn't really his uncle, but Poppy had always heard Kit call Professor McGonagall's old friend this.

"But she isn't married," said Poppy, a little surprised the professor would bend the rules.

"Marriage! Uncle Elphinstone might as well be celibate …" Kit rested his hand on Poppy's belly and followed the baby's movements. Poppy closed her eyes because sleep evaded her these days. "We're giving her my name?"

"Yes. And it isn't a she."

Poppy lost count of the number of times this happened, but she sat up. Kit picked up his wand on the bedside table and conjured his grandfather's old soup pot. Poppy, ill again, although there couldn't possibly be anything in her stomach, bent over the pot. The reverend didn't usually allow magic to be performed within his home unless it proved absolutely necessary, and this was definitely one of those cases.

"It's okay," said Kit, holding her hair back. A Healer, he lived in the world of blood, sweat, and whatever else. He waited until she recovered and cleaned up the mess with a simple Scouring Charm; the thing cleaned itself. Kit laid her down, went to fetch bare necessities, and returned a few minutes later with a parcel of crackers, which he opened with his teeth, and ginger tea.

"Not hungry." Poppy put her pillow over her head.

"You're starving. You both are." He shook the crackers parcel and coaxed her into eating something. "Come on, Poppy, we eat in small amounts throughout the day."

Poppy nibbled on a cracker and ate through half the parcel as Kit passed out beside her. She got out of bed and wandered into the kitchen around nine, still in her bed things. A Muggleborn, she fended for herself and made plain toast and scrambled eggs. If and when she managed to hold down the bland stuff, her Healer had said, they could graduate to actual food. But she bet she'd be stuck this way through the rest of her pregnancy; she had nine weeks left in this hell, fasting without a choice, and it would be over.

Some foolish not yet qualified matron had actually promised her a bouncing baby at the finish line, insisting she only had to get through this last leg of this so-called marathon, and Poppy had aimed a bedpan at her head. How was that for bedside manner? Looking back, Poppy knew she overreacted, but the last thing she wanted was a rosy picture.

The reverend returned after service to enjoy a late lunch. Minerva, he'd said, had returned to Hogwarts. Smiling, he shook a large plastic container and grabbed silverware from the drawer. "Chicken noodle soup, granddaughter. Homemade, not the canned stuff."

"You're kidding me." She clapped her hands like a child.

Poppy almost cried tears of joy in anticipation. The reverend shrugged off his coat and hung it over a wooden chair. He went back into the sitting room and returned with another plastic bag with chocolate ice cream and a stock of vegetables. He stowed these things away and waited for Poppy to get dressed again. She hadn't missed the granddaughter reference, and this warmed her along with the soup.

"Thank you, reverend," she said, sitting at the table.

"Grandpapa."

"I'm sorry?" Poppy set down her spoon, afraid she offended him.

"In this house, all the grandkids call me Grandpapa. You may call me Robb, if you would like," said the reverend, shrugging this off like he really didn't care. He did this with difficultly, for he stayed within the lines and was clearly stricter than Minerva McGonagall.

"You're clearly her role model, revere … Robert," said Poppy, savoring the broth. Robb seemed too informal for this man. She meant no disrespect and waded through a pregnant pause.

"The teenagers call me Fornicator behind my back," he said, shrugging this off as he went to get her blue traveling cloak. Licking his chapped lips, he placed placed her cloak back on the hook, shrugging apologetically, and grabbed a handsome navy blue Mackintosh instead. "I haven't got anything to fit you. Let us take a walk."

Poppy pulled it on. The reverend tucked a loose lock of blonde hair behind her ear. His hand lingered on her neck a little long, though he merely cracked his knuckles and complained of arthritis and old age. She smiled, a little sickened by his lingering scent, though she couldn't place it.

"I am leaving Kit a note." He scribbled on a napkin and picked his teeth with a toothpick before he tossed it away.

"Do you smoke?" Poppy took his hand.

"No." Robert wore casual dress clothes to service and went around as an everyday man. They walked past the dirt roads towards the farmlands. Poppy, enjoying the fresh air, caught on to his humming. He showed his gleaming false teeth. "Something wrong?"

"No, sir," she said.

"Kit tells me you're in jeopardy of losing your matron license," he said, pausing to fill in the blanks of a story he didn't quite understand nor have all the details. "You made a mistake?"

Actually, it was Remus Lupin who accidentally made the mistake, and she'd lost ranking as a matron. About a month ago, Remus had accidentally attacked a boy and risked putting research for the Wolfsbane Potion on the back burner. Poppy escorted him to and from safety each month, so he was her charge, her responsibility, and she'd let her guard down.

Poppy knelt awkwardly by a sheepdog standing by a wooden fence. She was pregnant, but still fit. Smiling, Poppy scratched her behind her ears. She'd grown up in an agricultural community and enjoyed the company of animals. She switched her tone to a higher octave.

"I'm expecting a baby, too. Yeah. You're a pretty thing. Will you sit for me?"

"Sit," said Robert. The sheepdog whimpered once, sat down, and planted herself at Poppy's feet. Robert smiled. "I think dogs can tell."

"Whether or not a woman is pregnant? I've heard that, too." Poppy checked the dog's collar and noted Merry belonged to the McGregor family. The reverend tapped his nails on the fence and undid the latch. Thinking she'd return Merry and head back home with her good deed done for the day, Poppy followed him. "Come, Merry."

Merry stayed her side. After they finally delivered the dog, it started raining. The reverend, insisting she see the sheep, led her over to an encampment. He suddenly sounded raspy, like he'd caught cold.

"Reverend, are you all right?" Poppy patted his arm and pointed towards the road. "Let's head home and I'll brew you tea."

"I don't want anything from you." Robert led her into a shed and rested a hand on her belly. He took out of the false teeth, setting them on a box and considered her with sharp blue eyes. Poppy, frightened, moved away from him. The reverend took out a wand and grinned at her with sharpened teeth as he stepped into the light. "Now is when we panic."

"Who are you?" Poppy shivered when the wizard cast a Silencing Charm and she froze when he approached her.

"Oh, I think you know," rasped the man as he laughed. "Your husband works with Hippocrates and Abigail Smethwyck on some lycanthropy project, does he not? Poor Kristopher."

"Mr. Greyback," she said, sighing when he pulled her in and embraced her like a lover and took her in. She wondered how he had disguised himself because Polyjuice Potion would not have worked on his kind. Silent tears spilled down her cheeks when Poppy realized she was defenseless. "Whatever you think you're doing, you can walk away …"

"Kristopher said I couldn't touch him, but I can touch you. I bet you're good." He pressed her up against a wall and forced her legs apart.

"No, no. Please!" She kept her eyes on his face and groaned as he moved inside her. Poppy, desperately thought of someone, anyone else, and she tried to fight him off, but he proved too strong and her body betrayed her.

"You like it, my sweet. You tell your husband…" Greyback pressed his lips to hers, and she spat in his face when he broke the kiss. He laughed, enjoying the game as he fixed his clothes. "Do you have any part in this?"

"No, no." Listening to the rain, Poppy closed her eyes as Remus Lupin's smiling face filled her mind. Lyall Lupin had shared his story about how Greyback had snuck into his boy's window.

"Liar. I'll find out your secrets one way or another, my sweet. Tell Kristopher to stay out of my way because I will not forget about his little one." Greyback turned his head when they heard voices. He gave her a goodbye kiss and disappeared into the sheets of heavy rain.

Poppy, crippled with fear and gulping down lungfuls of air, slid down the wall. She sat there for a long time debating what to do next. If she went to the hospital and reported this, Hippocrates Smethwyck's years of work would go up in smoke. Forget about Damocles Belby, the potioneer who crafted the successful brew, for he cared little for human beings. His child, his one true love, was the Wolfsbane Potion.

"You're fine." Poppy rested her hand on her side and slipped on her shoes. One of them had broken. She didn't know whether she comforted herself or the child, but she somehow felt stronger. She pulled herself up with the half wall and got physically ill as she leaned over the stall.

"Who're you?"

A strong man gone slightly to seed startled her. Still attractive, the fellow spoke with a thick brogue and ran a hand through his thick greying hair. He was weathered from years of hard labor, and he lowered his lantern and gave her a crinkly eyed smile. Poppy, terrified, shook her head as she bent over to fix her shoe.

The farmer raised his hands in a gesture of surrender as he backed off. "Oh, please don't tell me you're …"

"No." She'd mend the heel later.

"I've kids of my own, you see. Four." He offered her a calloused hand and grinned when Merry lay at Poppy's feet. "I'm Dougal. Dougal McGregor."

"Poppy … Poppy McGonagall." The name sounded like a stranger's. She'd hadn't taken Kristopher's name. The man called Dougal grinned, and she couldn't help trusting him. She placed her hand in his and walked out of the shed.

Mr. McGregor held an umbrella over her head and shared it with her. "Your Kristopher's girl."

"Yes," she said slowly. "How did you know?"

"You're wearing Mrs. McGonagall's ring and you're a plain Jane. About to have a baby." Dougal laughed at what he read as uncertainty on her face. "The reverend never shuts up about Kristopher. Kit this, and Kit that. He's very proud of his grandson, the good doctor, and he thinks you're very beautiful."

"Oh." Poppy flushed with color. The reverend had married her to Kit in a quiet ceremony, but he'd never paid her a compliment before.

"His daughter's like that, too," said Dougal, scratching his chin, seeming to get lost in the past somewhere. He came back and shrugged his shoulders. "The only nice thing Minerva ever said to me is I managed to get through my chores still standing upright. Good teeth. I think she said that, too."

"You know Professor McGonagall?" Poppy took off the shoes and decided to walk barefoot.

"Once upon a time, a long, long time ago," he said. He handed her the umbrella. "Will you deliver something to her for me, m'lady? Wait a moment."

Poppy didn't like the phrasing of this. She nodded, and he went back inside his house. She smiled, amused by his boyish expression. Mr. McGregor handed her a thick manilla envelope packed full of letters. "I am no lady. You've been writing to her for a long time?"

"Since 1957." Dougal beamed at her proudly. "Her mother used to deliver them, but she passed, you know, and the reverend has a lot going on. So … she teaches chemistry up at the school. She was always smarter than me. What do you teach?"

Poppy tucked the envelope under her arm. "I am the matron, sir."

"Calls me 'sir', and yet she's no lady! I am a simple-minded farmer, me." Positively beaming at her, Mr. McGregor walked her home and bowed her inside. "Reverend shouldn't be long because evening service ends around six. M'lady."

XxX

Poppy acted like no highborn lady. The daughter of a farmer and a librarian, she went wherever she was needed. She didn't blame Mr. McGregor, but had he showed up minutes earlier, he might have prevented what Poppy tried desperately to forget. Time passed, and though she tried desperately to bury that night, it stayed in the back of her mind. They had the child, a girl called Claire, and five years later, they had another one on the way.

On a summer afternoon in 1982, Poppy laid her apron over a chair and rushed out to greet Kristopher and Claire on the grounds. She wasn't showing yet, but the sickness gripped her again like she couldn't believe. She picked up Claire, startling her, and spun her around in circles at the Black Lake.

"Mama!" Claire threw her chubby arms around Poppy's neck and rested her head on her mother's shoulder.

"My Claire." Poppy pressed her lips to Claire's cheek.

The little girl was getting too old for this. After the war ended, she breathed easier like everyone else, but a certain werewolf kept making guest appearances in her dreams. Claire stayed with her father in London, and Poppy missed everything because she spent nine months out of the year at Hogwarts Castle.

"How are you feeling?" Poppy ran her fingers through Claire's dark curls. "Hmmm? Are you well?"

Claire feigned thinking about this like it was a serious question. "Well."

Poppy nodded. Since the incident that happened in Caithness, Poppy had distanced herself from Kristopher. And he didn't know why. She slept next to a stranger, and this was even when she had to share a bed with him at all. Sleeping meant sleeping because she rarely let him touch her. They kissed each other like strangers greeting each other like a handshake. Last Easter, on a return visit to Caithness, Poppy enjoyed the wine and shared a night with Kit, and they repeated a mistake.

Kristopher stood underneath a birch tree by the lake talking to his aunt and Elphinstone Urquart. Elphinstone, alight with happiness, barely seemed able to contain himself. Poppy frowning, wondered vaguely why. She'd been separated from Kit for three months now, though they made no public announcement, and they were still together.

"Claire. Claire Elizabeth. Come with me, please." Minerva took the child from Poppy and headed back up to the castle with her friend. She'd been privy to the whole story, Poppy knew, for Kit kept nothing from his favorite aunt.

"Good afternoon, Kristopher." Poppy dropped the nickname as they slipped into friends.

"Poppy," said Kit. He kissed her, insistent, asking her, begging her for more. The seductiveness in his tone allured her. "I want my wife back."

"Kristopher," she sighed.

"Oh, say it again. My name." Kristopher wondered with his hands. Poppy enjoyed the game until his clean shaven face disappeared and Fenrir Greyback's blue eyes stared at her as Kristopher's appearance started to shift. "You like it? My sweet…"

Poppy stopped dead. The inflection ceased to matter for this was all it took for the beautiful summer day to fade away and her mind to return to the McGregor farm. Kristopher froze, no doubt reading the panic or despair on her face and backed off. Poppy's knees buckled, shaking slightly as Kit backed off with his hands raised. Poppy touched her lips with a trembling hand, bit her lip, and started marching up to the castle after she lost her breakfast in the Black Lake.

She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her robes. "I have to get back to work."

"Poppy. You are my wife! Let me in."

Walking backwards, Poppy flashed her hand; she wore no ring. This, in her mind, meant divorce was right around the corner. "You asked me to give the ring back."

"Yeah. No." Kit shrugged, anguish washed over his face; it was his face again, so as far as Poppy knew her mind played tricks on her. Kit pressed on, eager to explain. "I gave it to Uncle Elphinstone. They're engaged."

"Oh."

Poppy read this as too little, too late, and she possessed no fight. They acted like awkward teenagers, neither of them prepared to make the next move because it wouldn't be a clean break. A child made things messy. Fearing he was about to ask her and rip off the bandage, the only thing holding them together, Poppy imagined never seeing her daughter again. Kit was a good husband and an excellent father, and even though the courts usually awarded custody to the mother, it was clear hands down he was a fit father.

"I love Claire," she said, begging him in a last ditch effort. "Please don't take her from me."

"What? No. What in Merlin's name are you talking about?" Kit stopped when she got ill again and he pieced it together. "You're pregnant."

"Stomach flu."

Kit shook his head, bemused, and followed her up to the hospital wing with a skip in his step. He helped her around the hospital wing and laughed when she headed towards her quarters to sleep it off.

"I remember those days! Easter before and after church," he guessed. They hadn't spoken much that Sunday, but they shared a lot of unsaid things in their time together. The excitement of this news evaporated as reality set in. "You weren't going to tell me."

"No, Kristopher, no! Wait." Poppy dropped a wrap by the stores cabinet and went to chase after him, grabbing him by the arm. If there was one thing you didn't do in the McGonagall family, it was keep secrets. A lie of omission was a lie nonetheless, and she knew this well because Isobel had lied to Robert and concealed the truth about her magical ability. "One more chance. One more chance!"

"Claire is mine! And if you think to take this child, my child, away from me, you are sadly mistaken. Unless it isn't mine?" Kit strode towards the locked ward doors. Poppy shook her head, completely losing her head, and started bawling. "We are done."

"Kristopher, I beseech you!" Poppy fell to her feet, gasping for sir. "One more chance."

"Tell me." Kit, shaking with fury, pulled Poppy to her feet. "You shut down and you left me. Where the hell are you?"

"The afternoon I came back with Dougal McGregor?" Poppy sat on a clean bed and told him everything that passed in the shed. Kit, after some patient questioning, simply stared, and by the end, he was tears. Poppy told him all this like she told a narrative story. She'd never seen her husband cry before. "And he kissed me."

"And he left?" Kit waited for her to nod. "It all makes sense. You can't sleep without a candle or a fire at night. After Remus left school, you stopped with the lycanthropy project …"

"I'm sorry." Poppy blamed herself. "If I had had my wand or asked you to go with me…"

"Poppy, no." Kit kissed her, and for the first time in a long time, Poppy kissed him back as an immense weight lifted off her shoulders. "He will never lay a hand on you or our children."

Poppy placed little faith in empty words. "How do you know?"

Kristopher didn't know. If given a chance or the slightest opportunity in a perfectly just world, Kit threatened to tie the savage werewolf to a stake and watch him burn alive. There was no death penalty here, but the walls of Azkaban seemed let a compassionate release to someone like Fenrir Greyback. Again, these words were simply words. Kit, a Healer and all around pacifist, probably would do no such thing unless backed into a corner, but he'd go down swinging for his family.

They got up and went to go congratulate Elphinstone and Minerva on their engagement.

"Right. I'm only going to say this once and we're leaving it there," said Kit with an air of finality after many of the professors left the staff table. Things were lax and casual in the summertime so not everyone was there for the light lunch. He nodded at Minerva. Claire sat on his lap. "Say whatever you need now or forever hold your peace kind of stuff."

"I wondered if this might happen," said Minerva, resting her chin on her hand. "Go on."

"No, no, say what you're going to say," said Kit, sipping his water.

"You're getting a divorce. You're ending this." Minerva looked from Poppy to Kit. She held up a hand to silence Elphinstone, who clearly wanted to intervene.

"No." Kit, relieved he didn't get a talking to, sat back and draped an arm over Poppy's shoulder. Poppy and Kit held hands under the table. He slowed down, phrasing this delicately. "We are going through a rough patch. Yeah. Let us sort it out."

"Kristopher," said Professor McGonagall, her eyes flashing behind her spectacles.

"I am not a child, and this is as plain as I will get. Please." Kit, his tone shaky again, forced a smile on his face, a behavior Poppy had seen with his charges before he lost his temper. "We are not fine."

"All right," said the professor, letting it go when Elphinstone placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Poppy understood she walked along a dark road, and if this happened to go to court it would not go anywhere because everyone feared Greyback. Who would dare challenge him when he would target their children or grandchildren? But she took the first step in the right direction and eventually, maybe not right away, she might start to heal.


End file.
